The Burning Soul

41

I left Pastor’s Bay with my license intact, barely, but not my reputation. Engel watched me go. He was holding something in his right hand as I pulled away: the tracking device from Allan’s truck. I had confessed to planting it. I didn’t know if Engel believed me. In the end, it didn’t matter. It was just one more weight on the scales that seemed to be tipping against me.

Anna Kore lived, but it is possible that she might have been found earlier if it had not been for my arrogance, if I had spoken out sooner. It was Louis who pointed out later that, similarly, had I not acted as I did then she might not have been found at all, or not alive. But I still felt hollow when Valerie Kore thanked me, and kissed my cheek. I tried to apologize, to say that I was sorry, but she shook her head, and touched her finger to my lip, and silenced me.

‘She’s back,’ she whispered. ‘That’s all that matters. The rest will heal. I will make her well again.’

Here is a truth, a truth by which to live: there is hope. There is always hope. If we choose to abandon it, our souls will turn to ash and blow away.

But the soul can burn and not be damned.

The soul can burn with a bright fire and never turn to ash.

Above Pastor’s Bay six ravens flew low, barely rising over the skeletal trees. High in the clear blue sky the last geese were heading south, but the ravens moved north toward forests and mountains, toward ice and snow. They flew fast and sure into the coming dark, that they might tell the waiting wolf of all they had seen.